A Norfolk MP has dubbed the ongoing Brexit negotiations as "crisis and chaos" as he warned councillors risked being thrown off doorsteps during local election campaigning.

Speaking in the House of Commons on Thursday, Mid Norfolk Tory MP George Freeman challenged the prime minister Theresa May over the ongoing turmoil with Europe.

He said: “Does my right honourable friend agree with me, a former business minister, that this country’s businesses, on which we all rely, deserve better than this ongoing crisis and chaos, and need the certainty that could be delivered if every member of this house respected the referendum and a vote to leave in their constituency, and voted for it?”

He also had concern over local elections, to be held on May 2.

Last week Labour county councillor Colleen Walker, who has been campaigning in Great Yarmouth, where she hopes to win a borough council seat in Magdalen, said there was a lot of anger on the doorstep.

She said: “We have got some young members of the party and we’ve been saying to them not to go canvassing or delivering on their own and, if somebody throws a wobbly when they put a leaflet through the door, just to walk away and not engage.”

Mr Freeman asked the prime minister: “Could she also tell me what to tell voters on the doorsteps on May 2, when my hard-working local councillors risk being thrown out, after four years of really good work on our behalf, for something that they are not responsible for?

Mrs May said Mr Freeman was “absolutely right about the importance of our finding a way through in this House to deliver on Brexit and to ensure that we do so in an orderly way”.

She added: “He should tell voters on the doorsteps that this is a government who have been working, and who continue to work, to deliver Brexit. When it comes to the local council elections, I am sure that people will recognise that if they want good local services and lower council tax, there is only one way to vote and that is Conservative.”